How to love Love

against the Wolves on behalf of season ticket holders allows for several days of David Kahn sitting on the witness stand, and as each personnel move is listed, he is given a sworn chance to respond with his rationale for making the move, what he told the media and fans at the time, and how effective he believes the eventual move was.

PD Girl gets to be the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, and Eric in Madison is brought in to yell “WHY ALL THE ROOKIES??!!”

SNP, nice write-up. Two contrasting philosophies come to mind:

Youth with potential vs. Established productive veterans

Talented players who are redundant vs. Roster balancing

What is the best way toward a championship?

OKC started with the talented young players: Durant, Westbrook, Green…

Then did roster balancing / brought in veterans: Green for Perkins

Of course they haven’t won anything yet…

MN starts with: Love, Rubio, Williams

Will they roster balance?

Will the wolves wait a season under Adelman before roster balancing / bringing in more veterans? Should they?

Sorry if this is redundant…

No way Rubio is dealt, and I’m fine with that. I want to see what he can do.

If they can get someone to bite on a Williams/Johnson/Ridnour package I’m cool with that. If Rubio hits, and I think he might, he will transform this franchise.

that the season the Wolves made it to the WCF was due to the foul rule changes. Which is also why Detroit won despite being vastly inferior to LA.

KG + Spree + Cassell was the core that made it work, and by the time the latter two arrived, what-they-were was even better established that what-KG-was. If we’re going to compete soon, we need to move some of these could-bes for some already-ares. (Yes, even Pek.) The main hurdle, to me, is that our two positions of need are the positions of greatest need league-wide.

Being a homer makes it harder for me, because I get attached to all of our players, even the scrubs. It’s irrational, but that’s my flavor of fandom (and it’s why I usually don’t have much to say in trade-scenario discussions).

against the wall to see what stuck, and they’ve basically ended up with Rubio and maybe Williams as potentially average-to-above-average NBA starters.

Between Adelman’s age, Kevin Love’s patience, and the lack of a lottery pick next year, that philosophy is done/over/out. Now they have to go after proven NBA starters, overpaying for them in both salary and trade pieces.

The problem with this chapter, though, is that when Rambis was the coach, other teams could look at underperforming Wolves and say, “Well, no sh*t. Look who his coach is.” With Adelman at the helm, he carries enough respect that I think teams will say, “If Adleman can’t improve the player and doesn’t want him, why should we?”

This is why the Wolves need to pretend that David Kahn is still in charge of personnel moves.

for a 2/3 of above average level. I have a fair bit of confidence that Rubio will perform pretty well this season and make playing fun for Kevin to convince him to stay IF the wolves can get a servicable wing player to make this team more complete and competitive as a starting unit.

IF you can show that getting the role players SHOULD be easier and having a coach like Adelman should help in identifying those players for once.

SnP, I actually agree pretty heavily on your idea to add 1 good player to Rubio and Love and I was thinking about how we briefly talked about the Kidd Marbury trade and how that catipulted the lottery bound Nets to being an East power for about 5 years.

Think about that team: Kidd, Carter (towards the end of the run)/Kittles, Jefferson, Martin (?), Jason Collins

Carter was okay (when he wanted to be), Jefferson was very good for a few years there….but really nothing too special. Just some good players playing with one of the best pass first point guards in the last 20 years.

Love is way better than either Carter or Jefferson were during those runs, so I def agree that if you can add another good piece to this then we’re really starting to get somewhere.

McHale/Kahn

Look I don’t love Kahn, maybe he is maybe he isn’t worse than McHale….but McHale had one of the best players of the last 15 years on his team and couldn’t do anything with it. He did squander draft picks and signed some horrible deals (like the one we are about to be paying for this summer).

I guess you do have to give him the fact that he drafted two franchise players….but at least with the first one he couldn’t have done a worse job with it. I can think of three specific drafts that could have changed everything.

1.) 1999: We took Will Avery while Maggette was either the pick before or after (Ron Artest was in that range too). I think a team of Brandon, Maggette, Wally, Kg would have been way good if they would have stayed healthy
2.) Rashad Mccants: taken 3 picks before Danny Granger
3.) Foye/Roy (which still looks bad even with Roys injury)

also he may have inadvertently screwed the KLove regime up considering he took Brewer instead of Noah (Noah, Love and Rubio would be reallllllllly nice) and just completely f’d up the KG.

Think about the KG trade for a second, if we’d have gotten Tony Allen, Rondo and Jefferson +the picks package we got (which we got our own pick back) instead of all that garbage AND drafted Noah…..we may have been looking at not the worst situation ever (still a little thick in the post)

Idk….maybe I’m more bitter to McHale since he ruined my youth and Kahn’s damages aren’t fully coming to fruition yet….but I still think I lean McHale….for now.

I want to caution on trading Williams. Not that we can’t do it, but let’s look at the Clippers situation for a moment.

Would the Clippers have been able to get Chris Paul for the Eric Gordon package with Eric Gordon as a rooke? I’m going to guess not….if someone wants to challenge that I will hear them out, but for the sake of argument I’m going no.

But they let their guy develop and they were able to net an All-Star for him.

There are trades I believe you should and shouldn’t make for Williams….Anything Kevin Martin or worse I would really really caution….if it’s a James Harden (which there will probably be some that say Harden isn’t better than Martin…I will disagree, I think his overall game is much more solid and his scoring upside I think can be just as good as Martin) or Eric Gordon….yes that’s a trade I’m willing to do….even Andre Iggy I’d look into.

Maybe I have something against Martin….idk…I think he’s a nice player but don’t think he’s worth the no.2 pick in the draft even in a weak draft even when he plays the position of your best player.

No clue why they didn’t push harder for him. He’s a vet and can score. Two things we could use. Not sure if he turned us down outright, but christ, Portland pretty much got him for free… 2yrs/$10MM. If he was on this roster I see no reason we don’t beat OKC and potentially the Bucks in the first two games.

and then, “How to love Love” came through on my facebook feed, linked to by the man himself.
Ruh-roh.
Great article as usual, SnP, and entertaining/interesting comments from everyone :). Hopefully someone with influence agreed/is listening ;).

If you haven’t been out to Sheridan Hoops, you ought to give it a try.

http://www.sheridanhoops.com/

One strange sight down there at the Wolves’ basement practice court:

I saw this guy, his hair wildly disheveled, churning furiously on an exercise machine as "Heat players lingered on the court a couple feet away and couldn’t figure who with the Heat this might be.

Then I realized it was David Kahn.

My intial thought seeing him out of place like that with Heat players and coaches everywhere:

Maybe he had been traded…"

http://www.startribune.com/sports/136398383.html

You have definitely fleshed out your case for a major move in the near future.
I’m more optimistic than some I suppose, I feel as if Malcolm Lee will turn out to be a Vinny Johnson type bench player. I also think that DWill can develop into a nice scoring big and possibly be an average defender. I am in love with Rubio’s game whether he develops into a double digit scorer or not. His court vision is scary good and his stutter step moves will get him openings in the lane.
As for the rest of the roster, meh…
Wes is worth exactly a late second round pick as is Pek. Ridnour, Berea, and Beas are acceptable trade bait along with gobs of cash to get a SG/SF. Darko is an adequate defensive center. Webster and Wayne are at best filler on a roster.
Which leaves me thinking that a trade even including Williams is likely the best move to be made; if a pile of DWill, Beas, Pek and Ridnour gets us Gordon sign me up Please!

If everything I’ve been told is true….we pretty much just went through another regime change this offseason. Team Adleman is now in charge.

For as much as I hate to say it….let’s give these guys a little bit to do what they want to do. Does anyone doubt if Adleman had wanted to trade Williams that it would have gotten done?

Patience can suck as a Wolves fan I understand….We got a guy in charge now with a fairly proven track record of success….let’s just see what happens. Maybe trades come by the dozen…maybe they don’t. Maybe Rick hates Beasley and is playing him because has too….or maybe he’s like “ya know, there is something about the kid.” Maybe there is no chance Williams can start for this team….maybe he Love and Beasley will be brilliant together.

Let’s give it some time and see what happens. I think the Milwaukee game freaked the hell out of everyone (don’t blame you), but let’s just ride this thing out. Rick Adleman has coached 1 game as a Wolves coach.

coach and evaluator of talent. And the Milwaukee game did bring back some of the horror that has been the last two seasons of our discontent.
But, baring incredible development from Malcolm Lee, we are (admittedly like many other teams) in dire need of a scoring guard/forward. That is the kind of missing piece that keeps teams from ever hoping to get above .500 much less advancing in the playoffs. One way or another, that HAS to be addressed to give us a chance to be relevant.

that would have been a nice risk

Thanks.

So now we just need a list of realistic players to target? Not really sure how to do it (Did I do it right? Hmm, still have to sort by WS/48?)

Looks to have around 100 players at that 0.1+ mark. Then break out SG and/or C, and value to their current team…?

James Anderson? Didn’t they covet Pek (sorry CJ)…

Just looking for some more ideas and possibilities.

some for players with actual skills that might be useful to a team: Beasley ($6.26m), Webster ($5.26m), Randolph ($2.9m), Tolliver ($2.05m), and Miller ($4.75m).

So which useful players might be available as part of a salary dump? Here’s my list of top candidates. Don’t get too excited — they’re better than we have, but still not great: Ben Gordon ($11.6m), Salmons ($8.5m), Childress ($6m). What do you think, do we take on some bad deals to get players who are mediocre instead of bad?